Good for them. Somebody has to do the good works in the world: <The British refused to allow the Chinese to act as sovereign nation.>
They also stopped Germany being a sovereign nation. The USA stopped Japan being a sovereign nation. The Cow stopped Iraq being a sovereign nation. The UN stopped Afghanistan being a sovereign nation. It's a shame Zimbabwe is a sovereign nation. It was a hideous tragedy that nobody stopped Rwanda being a sovereign nation.
Thanks to the British maintaining sovereignty over Hong Kong for a century, my daughter's de facto/fiance's father was able to escape by swimming, a few times, from the clutches of Maoistic MADness to Hong Kong and then to the relative, if jaundiced, freedom in New Zealand.
If a murderous and uncharming ideologue like Jay Chen was in charge at the border, he would have shot him in the back to stop him escaping, as he is in favour of shooting in the back children escaping from Tibet over mountains in the snow. In East Germany, they would also shoot in the back anyone attempting to escape, leaving them to die slowly and painfully.
Most people liked to have Negro slaves and whup them if they didn't work enough, and kill them if the fancy took them. Even now, most people vote to take opm for their own purposes. Most people like to force others to do their bidding. Conscription for military service being another such slavery.
You shouldn't feel bad about having a parasitic and predatorial ideology. It's the nature of nature, red in tooth and claw. Chimps chase and kill opposing groups. A dog shouldn't feel guilty about wanting to chase cats. It's only in recent centuries that humans [some of us] have developed an extended sense of ethics, morals, mutuality, universality which expands the concept of family and tribe to include all people who are willing to join such ethical ideologies. Buddhists and others take it further to include all animals too which should be left to live.
I think that those murdered in Rwanda would in retrospect rather have had the British in charge, enforcing civilisation. If a vote were held in Zimbabwe, with one option being Mugabe and how he has it and the other to become a province of Britain with all Zimbabweans becoming British Subjects [as happened in New Zealand before Britain slammed the door shut on us], I bet the vote would go for becoming British.
Many people think the British were kicked out of the Empire and Commonwealth. In fact, there was a great voluntary withdrawal too. As the USA is finding, maintaining an empire is expensive. The tsunami of "British" people arriving from the colonies became untenable and has caused a LOT of problems in Britain, as expected by Enoch Powell.
You are unimaginative and defeatist, as well as misunderstanding "civilisation". <You bemoan one of the universal constants of human civilisation as if it is a regression while in fact, it just is, was, and likely always will be... > It is a constant of "civilisation" not because it is part of civilisation, but because, like smallpox, it had always been around to a greater or lesser extent. It can be eliminated, like smallpox. It is the antithesis of civilisation.
Always will be is a very, very long time. Since it is such an easily imagined idea, I would not be surprised to see very close approximations in my lifetime. Heck, compared with the horrors of Aztec and most other realms over history, I have lived a life largely in such a system.
It doesn't occur to you that there could be a surprising reversal of roles and who is taking over whom? <I would be very surprised if the Chinese do not encourage a greater role eventually for it over Hong Kong with HK eventually being supplanted... For now the business infrastructure, environment and reputation of Hong Kong serve a need.. > What happens is a function of human minds, not relative numbers at any particular time. Perhaps Hong Kong, Taiwan, Shanghai and a few other places might start to lean rather heavily on Beijing, rather than the reverse.
Hooray for the British Empire and Long Live Queen Elizabeth II.
Mqurice |
